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Healthcare Workers Drive Flu Prevention in MD

 |  By mphillion@hcpro.com  
   December 29, 2010

Sometimes, it's all about the marketing.

Take flu shots for instance. How do you best ensure that you can reach the optimal percentage of staff? How about an attention-grabbing catch-phrase?

At Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Salisbury, MD, a new theme is introduced every year during flu season. For 2010, the organization said "Boo to the Flu."

"We had Halloween-themed costumes, and gave out candy and stickers saying 'I said Boo to the Flu'," says Tracy Daugherty of Peninsula Regional's Employee Health department. They also held a drawing for a $50 gift certificate. Special artwork was created specifically for the event's stickers and posters.

"The Employee Health program has grown to reach out to not only employees, but contractors, physicians, volunteers, students, everyone who is associated with the hospital," says Karen Mihalik, RN, CIC, infection preventionist and member of Peninsula Regional's Flu Team.

"Boo to the Flu" was a follow-up to last year's theme, "Tackle the Flu," which promoted awareness with similar giveaways as well as staff wearing their favorite football jerseys to work.

This year, Peninsula had a new level of support from upper management in the form of mandatory net learning.

"This allows the organization to poll staff to find out why they may or may not be receiving the flu shot," says Daugherty. "We can find out the employees' reasons behind it, and educate to those reasons."

The net learning polling system has been in place for years, but was not mandatory until now. While the non-mandatory version was helpful, it was nowhere near as beneficial or educational as receiving feedback from all employees.

"We can use the information we learned from it to develop the program in the future," says Daugherty.

The employee flu shot clinics are part of a larger outreach project spearheaded by Peninsula Regional's overall healthcare awareness program.

"It's a multidisciplinary team," says Mihalik. "It's a big effort and not limited to just employees."

The program also includes family nights for flu shots, and the incredibly popular Drive-Thru Flu Clinic for the community. "We've been doing the Drive-Thru clinic for 17 years," says Mihalik.

It began as an extension of the mall booth concept. "We expanded from the booth due to a distinct need for flu shots," she says.

At first, the drive-through clinic was set up outside the hospital using the facility's own parking lot. These days the clinic has moved down the road to Arthur W. Perdue Stadium in order to accommodate the number of patients who show up.

"Last year we were just a few patients short of seven thousand," said Mihalik. The team's multidisciplinary approach comes into play when pulling together this enormously popular event.

"We need staff to organize the lot, involve security, make sure supplies are ordered. [We need] people to handle the consent forms. We need staffing to support the clinicians who are on site," said Mihalik.

All of this has become a sixteen-hour event that served over 5,000 people this year."We've got it down to a science now," said Mihalik.  As expected with any project of this scale, there were lessons learned along the way.

"Before we moved to the stadium, we encountered traffic issues when the popularity grew," says Mihalik. When issues grew, like cars parked in neighboring residential areas or blocking the street, they knew the clinic would need a larger venue more apt to handle the flow.

"We've figured out now how to arrange the number of shot givers and consent takers, people to answer questions from patients, security to direct traffic," said Mihalik.

Impressively, all of this happens with in-house staff and volunteers. A combination of security and facilities management direct traffic (local police are aware of the event, but are not on site). The clinic itself is staffed by ten nurses at a time on an availability-based schedule. They rotate in and out as needed, with a core group of leaders on site at all times.

No one is required to participate as part of their job—everyone who works on the clinic does so voluntarily.

Physically, the drive through is set up to do a volume business. Rows of cars literally drive up to a tent, under which nurses wait on each side of the car to administer shots. Typically there are four lanes of traffic with two nurses manning each lane. Support staff act as runners to keep the nurses administering the shots supplied in vaccines (the vaccine is temperature sensitive and thus needs to be kept cool). The runners also keep each station stocked in alcohol preps.

Additionally, the clinic provides an educational service to patients. Before passing through the tents, they are provided with information on the flu, why vaccination is important, and key product information about the vaccine used.

"It's phenomenal—our staff is able to give 300 shots an hour," said Milahik.

Matt Phillion, CSHA, is senior managing editor of Briefings on The Joint Commission and senior editorial advisor for the Association for Healthcare Accreditation Professionals (AHAP).

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